Program Effectiveness
Research Report
Preschool Education Studies
A Bibliography Organized by Research Strengths
Date
February 1, 2007
Summary
In this paper, NIEER Director Steve Barnett provides insight on how to read and analyze the strengths and weaknesses of research. This paper defines and gives examples of five types of research used in studying early childhood education: 1) true experiments with model or small-scale public programs and long-term follow-up; 2) true experiments with large-scale public programs; 3) quasi-experiments; 4) large statistical studies designed to study pre-k where program is observed; and 5) large, general purpose data sets used to study preschool.
The Authors
W. Steven (Steve) Barnett is a Board of Governors Professor and the founder and Senior Co-Director of the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) at Rutgers University. Dr. Barnett’s work primarily focuses on public policies regarding early childhood education, child care, and child development.